Last One There's Dead
by NotYourAverageGreenBean
Summary: When the news comes, it's no surprise - Director Nick Fury of SHIELD has been developing supertechnology for the past decade, and now the Hounds, a vicious band of superpowered rebels, have stolen it. Unfortunately, it's time for Loki, SHIELD, and the one-eyed orphan-turned-tech-developer to learn the first lesson of an arms race: Last one there's dead.


"Approximately how many squirrels do you think there are?" Loki asks one day, lounging on the most expensive couch in the Avengers Tower.

Tony looks up from his jet schematics, sliding his reading glasses down his nose. "What?"

Loki rolls his eyes. "How many squirrels?"

"On the _planet?_"

"Yes, approximately."

"I don't think -"

Thankfully, the alarm system goes off before Tony has to do any strenuous mathematical work.

Within twenty minutes, the newly supplanted Avengers team has gathered on the deck of the Helicarrier. Nick Fury stares reproachfully at his charges. They've grouped - perhaps subconsciously, perhaps not - into two teams: Loki, and everyone else.

One would think that after two months in the field together they'd learn to trust each other, but if they had, Fury isn't sure he would ever have chosen them in the first place.

It does, however, irritate him when his grown-ass military strike team gets down and dirty with petty insults before nine a.m.

"Loki, honestly, you're calling me fat? You ate an _entire _pizza last night," Stark says, refusing to look either Loki or Fury in the eye.

"I have the metabolism of a god, and I don't look as old as you."

At this, Stark bristles. "I am not getting old, okay! And you, you're what, four centuries old?"

"Six." Loki says, green eyes bright. "But _I _don't look it."

"At least - at least I don't wear that stupid helmet."

"No, you wear a different stupid helmet."

Rogers sighs through his nose. "Can you two hooligans stop bickering, please?"

"Who says 'hooligans' anymore?" Stark and Loki both retort.

"Shut up."

"I don't see why we can't discuss your lack of modern assimilation, Cappity-Cap," Barton says. "It's such a vast topic."

"The plasma television incident!" Thor cuts in with a hearty laugh. "Even I know how to use the magic wand!"

"Remote," Loki corrects reflexively.

"I'll remote detonate a bomb under your beds if you don't shut the hell up."

"Natasha, you wouldn't dare."

"Barton-of-the-Bow, are you willing to put your mouth where your money is?" Thor asks.

"Money where your mouth is," says Loki.

"Brother, why must you insist on correcting everything I say?"

"Because all of it is wrong."

Stark opens his mouth, and Fury smacks the elevator button with his palm, shutting Tony out as quickly as he can. The floors flash past as the elevator descends to the room Nick likes to call the Intrapersonal Neural Technology Research and Development Department.

Agent Hill likes to call it _Giant Secret Acronym_, but whatever.

The pneumatics hiss, and the elevator shudders to a halt. Nick turns to face the Avengers. He knows the doors haven't opened yet because he hasn't put in his access code, but he also knows that to the human members of the team it looks like he's using his Fury Voodoo Magic™ to hold the elevator shut.

"I know you all have heard this spiel before, so I shouldn't have to remind you that any tech in this room _remains_ in this room, and if I discover one of you has taken anything -" here he looks at Stark "- I'll personally hunt you down and strangle you with your entrails."

"Avec grand plaisir, no doubt," Loki says, and his French earns him a punch in the shoulder from Thor.

"Show off."

"I'll strangle you now if I have to," Nick says, face perfectly blank, and everyone is so focused on not being asphyxiated that they don't notice when the elevator doors open until Tony tumbles out onto the lab floor.

Tony looks up, and haloed by the halogen lights is an angel.

-Or on second thought, a skinny wisp of a brown-skinned girl with the oddest piece of silver metal running from the center of her forehead, along one dark eyebrow, and over her ear.

"I just went ahead and let you in, Nicolas, because the elevator hates it when you threaten Loki."

Struck by the sudden urge to remain on the floor, Tony says, "What are you, twelve?" and gets a combat boot to the right arm.

"Fourteen, actually," the girl says, sticking her chin out defiantly. "And you're littering my lab floor."

Tony concedes that he is, indeed, littering, and staggers to his feet.

"What do you mean 'the elevator doesn't want Fury threatening Loki'?" Barton asks, signaling the safe arrival of the other Avengers.

"The elevator has a crush on Loki. He told me." She turns to Fury, and Tony can see that the girl has one large brown eye and one completely detail-less, white orb on the same side as her metal-headband-thing instead of another eye. It's creeping the hell out of him, and for the first time in his life he's desperate to escape a lab. Her head jerks to the side, indicating something to Nick, and the scarred skin of her face is thrown into jagged relief.

He swallows his nausea and nudges the first person to his left. "The elevator has a crush on Loki."

"I heard," Loki replies. "If we're honest, what doesn't?"

Tony scoffs. "Cyborg over here probably doesn't."

"Perhaps." Loki tilts his head in assent. "Or perhaps not."

"Dickwad," he mutters under his breath.

"I can hear you, you know," Loki says at the exact same moment as Cyborg Girl, and then looks like he's swallowed his tongue. He doesn't even get a chance to stutter before she speaks again.

"I have equipment to show you. Shut up and follow me."

"Don't you normally do all the technical support?" Loki whispers.

Tony doesn't know when Loki became the most viable conversational option, but the other Avengers are looking far too interested in the present happenings to occupy Tony, so he just goes with it.

"Well, yeah - I have no clue what we're doing here."

Loki purses his lips, looking like a disappointed child. "I thought we were going into battle." His emerald cape flutters around him as he walks, and the harsh lighting glints off burnished gold detailing on, well, everything.

Tony looks down at his green pyjamas and grey Pink Floyd t-shirt. "Yeah, me too," he says, struggling to keep his voice steady.

Loki gives him a strange look, and almost smiles.


End file.
